PHOENIX – The game, the series, the National League West standings and possibly even the Dodgers’ season turned on a dime Sunday in a frenetic top of the ninth inning that won’t soon be forgotten.

More specifically, it turned on a single plate appearance, one enigmatic Dodgers outfielder Matt Kemp would later admit was his best at-bat of the year, which led to a 6-5 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in front of 39,217 at Chase Field.

In the midst of a five-run rally against embattled Diamondbacks closer Brandon Lyon – who before it was over would walk off the field to a chorus of boos – Kemp had fallen behind 1-2, taken a ball, fouled off three consecutive pitches, then driven Lyon’s eighth offering up the gap in left-center field, where it rolled to the deepest nook of one of baseball’s biggest ballparks.

Pablo Ozuna, the veteran utility man whom the Dodgers had signed earlier in the day and who had just been sent in to run for Andy LaRoche, raced all the way home from first, punctuating his sprint with an all-out, palms-down dive into home plate.

With that, the Dodgers had tied the score at 4 in a game that had once seemed a lost cause.

A few minutes later, following an RBI triple by Andre Ethier, an RBI single by Russell Martin and a shaky-but-effective performance by accidental closer Jonathan Broxton, the Dodgers had taken two of three from the Diamondbacks, re-tied them atop the division and finally given themselves that caffeinated jolt they had been searching for all season.

The key now for the Dodgers, a team that might not have needed an airplane for its postgame flight to Denver, is how well they deal with the reality that there is another game tonight. And 63 more after that.

“This was a tough loss for them and a good win for us,” Dodgers catcher Russell Martin said. “But there are too many games left to tell if it’s going to have an effect on them or not. There is a lot of baseball left.”

True enough, but the rest of this season – and especially the 10 games these two clubs are still scheduled to play against each other, seven of which are at Dodger Stadium – suddenly took on a radically different tone after that ninth inning.

The Diamondbacks have claimed all or part of first place for 106 consecutive days, while the Dodgers have spent most of that time chasing them from a safe distance. But just when it appeared Arizona would push that distance to two games again, when it appeared the Dodgers’ inability to put up much of a fight against Dan Haren and Brandon Webb would put them at an extreme disadvantage going forward, Arizona manager Bob Melvin pulled Webb from the game to start the ninth inning with his club leading 4-1.

The Dodgers then proceeded to bat around, reminding Melvin that all the Harens and Webbs in the world can’t make up for the fact the Diamondbacks traded their All-Star closer, Jose Valverde, to Houston last December.

A stirring, ninth-inning rally might be a new thing for the Dodgers. But the ingredients that went into it are not.

“Early in the year if we were facing (San Diego’s Jake) Peavy or a Webb type and they were pitching well, there was a tendency to think we couldn’t win the ballgame,” Dodgers manager Joe Torre said. “But right now, we’re battling to the end, and it certainly paid off this time.